In the same vein, I was thinking recently about how this ever increasing number of “abstraction layers” in the economy impacts day to day life and community–I t

In the same vein, I was thinking recently about how this ever increasing number of “abstraction layers” in the economy impacts day to day life and community–I think it’s much more likely someone would feel connected to their community and a sense of purpose in life if they, for example, worked out of their own small bakery and met their customers all day, versus working in the back room of a corporate chain supermarket making minimum wage. We seem to be losing things that anchor our communities together, and I wonder if being directly dependent on other people in the community, as opposed to indirectly through layers of bigger, abstract businesses, isn’t one. There are obvious myriad and complex reasons we’ve arrived where we are, but it’s an interesting topic to ponder. I’ve also thought this shift could be responsible for other societal phenomena: it’s fairly well known that some portion of people are pretty awful to the people working in shops or restaurants. Is this perhaps a behavior that only really develops in a world where people rarely visit owner-operated businesses (where they might face consequences for treating the owner poorly)?